


A Bad Joke

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [16]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: In college, Matt convinces Foggy to pretend to be soulmates to ward off one of Matt's, uh, excessive admirers. It's just pretend, of course.Until it's not. But, Foggy thinks, it's probably best to keep that to himself. You know. For ten years. It's fine.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: Tumblr Ficlets [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1419673
Comments: 163
Kudos: 518





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of this fic can be found on Tumblr [here](https://pomegranate-belle.tumblr.com/post/190067943685/happy-new-year-for-the-prompt-game-thing)

It all starts because Matt is a flirty bastard who gravitates towards women that are capital-T Trouble like a child in galoshes gravitates towards puddles. That is — eagerly, enthusiastically, and with precisely zero regard for the people in the splash zone.

Foggy, who has become a permanent resident of _the splash zone_ , is best friends with him anyway, for some unfathomable reason.

Which is a mean thing to think. It’s not unfathomable. Matt is funny and whip-smart and a big nerd and he just gets Foggy, and his smile…

Anyway, life in the splash zone is worth it. Just, you know, it’s hard to remember that after your bestie’s date steals your wallet or gets you sexiled or stuck in the middle of a bar fight that is definitely not your fault. Or, apparently, tries to swap out the non-accessible petition form your (blind, by the way) best friend means to sign with a _marriage certificate_.

Yeah. Really. That’s the level of what-the-fuckery they’ve reached now.

“I think I need your help with this one,” Matt says with a grimace.

“You didn’t actually end up signing it, did you?” asks Foggy, because, well, with their luck who knows.

But Matt shakes his head.

“No, it’s just. Uh… I, um, don’t think she’s going to stop.”

Maybe Foggy should just smother himself with his pillow. Or smother Matt with his pillow. The second one seems like it would solve a lot more problems, since this mess is entirely Matt’s fault.

“And what, exactly, do you expect me to do about that, Matthew!” he demands. “You’re the one who decided to sleep with Stephanie Jenkins even after I warned you about her crazy eyes!”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, ok? You told me so, is that what you want to hear?” Matt all but whines, burying his face in his arms just enough to leave his eyes peeking out.

He’s on his bed, head towards the footboard and rolled onto his stomach for maximum cuteness. His eyes aren’t quite pointed the right direction, but that hardly matters. Matt’s pleading expressions are more effective even when they’re aimed a little right of their target than anybody else’s could be from straight on.

“Ugh.”

“Foggy, come on.”

“ _Ughhhhh_.”

“ _Foggy_.”

Matt’s big, wide sad-puppy-dog eyes get impossibly bigger and wider.

“Ok, ok! Fine, I’ll help! Stop pouting, jeez,” Foggy concedes in the face of Matt’s pleading expression and general air of hopelessness. “But don’t expect me to come up with a plan or anything, she’s your creepy hookup.”

Matt’s posture changes immediately now that he’s gotten what he wants. He goes up on his elbows, grinning the grin that always means chaos is coming.

“Gotta pull out the big guns for this one,” he claims. “Even she’d have to back off over a soulmate match.”

Foggy, who has maybe spent the past year and a half idly checking his skin for a mark that could potentially tie him to Matt, feels his stomach flip uncomfortably.

“You’re not suggesting…” His throat goes dry. “You and I fake being…”

“Well, I need someone in on it with me who won’t get the wrong idea,” explains Matt, cheerful as can be while he crushes Foggy’s stupid heart into tiny little pieces.

Foggy swallows hard.

“Yeah, um. Makes sense,” he croaks out.

“Good,” says Matt, all business, sitting up fully and holding out a box. “I already borrowed some temporary tattoo pens off Marci, and she promised to keep our secret if we buy her drinks next weekend.”

“Why does Marci have temporary tattoo pens?” asks Foggy as he gets up off his own bed and accepts them, since it seems like the most innocuous of all the questions rattling around in his head.

“To take notes on her arms, apparently,” Matt replies.

“Yeah, that tracks.”

Marci’s the kind of person who could get away with slightly-eccentric behavior like that, mostly because she was dead terrifying. And also hot. She was the kind of person people wanted to step on them. Not that _Foggy_ did. Or anything.

“Anyway,” Foggy said, maybe a little too loud, clearing his throat. “Where is it you want your soulmark, then?”

“Umm.” Matt tilts his head. “My… Arm, I guess? Isn’t that the best place to make it visible for Stephanie? I mean. Where did you think I wanted it, my butt?”

As Matt asks the question, his ears go a little pink, which offsets his sarcasm and is also hilariously adorable. Matt’s a cool guy, but he also spent like ten years surrounded by nuns, and every so often that becomes very, very clear. It’s definitely one of Foggy’s favorite things about Matt. Well, along with literally everything else about Matt. He grins.

“No offense, buddy, but you definitely are the kind of person who’d have one on your butt.”

“I am not!” laughs Matt. “What does that, what does that even mean?”

“Listen, Murdock, some people are just butt-soulmark people, that’s all. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Shut up,” Matt says, his voice still bright with humor. “It’s going on my arm.”

He shoves up the sleeve of his slightly-baggy sweater and holds out his right arm, palm up. So, Foggy digs around in the box of temporary tattoo pens until he finds one with black ink, and then settles next to Matt on the bed. Once he’s got himself in a good position, he accepts Matt’s arm, grabs it gently by the wrist to draw it down onto his lap.

And it’s like it finally sinks in, what he’s about to do. He’s going to literally mark Matt Murdock as his — never mind that it’s a farce to get rid of some creepy chick, or what Matt said about not getting the wrong idea. In a very real and physical sense, he’s about to draw something that will bind them together, at least in everyone else’s eyes. This goes way beyond bar napkin doodles, beyond wistful musings about Nelson and Murdock. People are going to see this mark and know—

They’re going to know what Foggy’s been trying not to know for a long time now. That he’s hopelessly, irrevocably, pathetically in love with Matt.

“What should it be?” Foggy asks, heart thundering in his chest as he holds the pen in one hand and the soft, pale expanse of Matt’s upturned arm in the other.

The smile on Matt’s face looks sweet and coy. A knock-out punch disguised as a cool, sweet drink. And as much as he pretends he’s a beer and cheap whiskey man, Foggy’s always been a sucker for the kind of fruity cocktails that knock him on his ass.

“Something fitting.”

“Gee, why didn’t I think of that,” mutters Foggy. “Speak now or I’m giving you an avocado.”

Matt tries halfheartedly to tug his arm away, laughing.

“No way, not an avocado. Something serious! Like… Scales of justice.”

“I see your hard-on for Lady Justice hasn’t diminished at all,” Foggy jokes, but begins drawing the scales anyway.

It takes enough focus that he’s able to override any feelings of embarrassment. And then he’s scrawling the same design onto his own skin, his left arm and Matt’s right pressed side-by-side as they lie across Foggy’s knee. Finally, it’s done and he caps the pen.

“Perfect,” he says, pleased, as he compares the two marks. “They’re identical. Suck on _that_ , Mr. Trenkamp, I can too draw straight lines.”

Is it the height of maturity to invoke your hated fourth grade art teacher like ten years after he first insulted your mediocre art skills? No. But being the height of maturity is lame anyway, Foggy decides.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” jokes Matt, and his expression is so soft that Foggy has to look away before he, like, spontaneously combusts or something.

“Well, trust me, pal, those are some primo fake soulmarks.”

“Thanks, Fog.”

Matt nudges Foggy’s shoulder with his own, then holds out a loose fist. Knocking their knuckles lightly together, Foggy can’t help the giddy smile on his face.

“Anytime, Matt.”

* * *

They don’t get a chance to show off their marks until two days later, when they’re strolling across campus towards the dining hall and Matt pauses apropos of nothing and rolls up his sleeves to his elbows, juggling his white cane a little in the process. He then proceeds to fumble for Foggy’s wrists and roll his sleeves up too.

“Matt, what—”

“Shh, act natural!” Matt mutters, knocking his cane lightly against Foggy’s shoe, and then pressing a warm hand to his back to get him walking again.

And, honest to god, not a minute later up walks Stephanie Jenkins. Foggy takes a good moment to consider that maybe Matt’s lady-radar is actually real. In the next, Matt is stretching his arms (and his cane, the goof) above his head, right wrist crossed in front of the left so his fake soulmark will be in sight. Stephanie jerks to a stop, eyes trained on it. After the stretch, for which Foggy very carefully avoids looking at Matt to see if his shirt rides up, Matt folds up his cane and holds out his hand, fingers curled slightly, the way he usually does when he’s asking for Foggy’s arm for guiding purposes.

“Fogs?”

Well, it’s a cue if Foggy’s ever seen one, so he presses his arm into Matt’s grip, making sure the underside of his forearm is turned up for Stephanie’s sake. Her eyes go huge. Foggy gets the feeling that, no matter what he’s trying to save Matt from, he’s going to feel like an asshole if she cries. Thankfully, her face turns puce and angry instead. She’s probably thinking something unflattering about Foggy’s suitability for a guy like Matt but, well. Fuck her anyway.

Just to nail in his point, apparently, Matt traces his free hand up Foggy’s shoulder and into his hair, brushing a long lock of it behind his ear before pressing a kiss to his cheek.

In all honesty, Foggy pretty much forgets all about Stephanie Jenkins after that. Just continues on towards the dining hall, narrating on autopilot in between long bouts of staring at Matt with a racing heart and pathetic cow eyes.

* * *

The two of them get a frankly embarrassing number of ‘I knew it’s from their classmates, go nearly broke keeping Marci Stahl in vodka, and kiss four more times (three on the cheek, and one chaste, close-mouthed peck on the lips that nearly stops Foggy’s heart).

Also, Foggy gets Stephanie Jenkins’ crazy-eyes glare for three straight weeks. He loves every second of it. _Suck it, Stephanie Jenkins_ , he thinks every time. Which is, yeah, probably a little mean, but hey, this is the lady who tried to take advantage of Matt’s blindness to trick him into (admittedly, a definitely not legally enforceable) marriage. Foggy doesn’t have an ounce of sympathy for her.

Though he risks jinxing himself, Foggy does eventually ask how long Matt thinks the ruse should go on. When Matt decides they should keep up the act until at least the end of the semester, Foggy tries not to agree too eagerly. After all, he’s not supposed to get the wrong idea. Eventually Matt’s heartbreaker ways will win out and he’ll want to find a hot girl to kiss. He’s trusting Foggy with an awful lot, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to… To, you know, fall in love with him or anything. But they’ll still always be best friends. That’s what really matters.

* * *

After three months, Foggy is used to seeing the fake soulmark on the inside of his left arm when he showers. It doesn’t make his heart squeeze anymore. He no longer has to remind himself that it’s still fake even when soap doesn’t wash it away — all it would take is a little makeup remover, after all. He knows that. It’s fake even though it’s there in a form of semi-permanence. Just another fact of life.

But this particular morning he stops cold, because there’s something on the inside of his right arm too. A perfect, identical mirror image of the scales of justice on his left.

Maybe he was so tired he drew another one on the wrong arm when refreshing the fake soulmark. Maybe. But probably not. Foggy takes slow, deep breaths until the end of his shower. Then he dries off, dresses — pulling on his shirt with the sleeves rolled all the way down — and hurries back to the dorm room for the box of makeup remover wipes they keep next to their sink now.

It’s fine, he tells himself, rolling up his sleeves. It’ll wash off. It’s ok. His hands are trembling so hard that he has to squeeze the wipe to keep hold of it and some of the remover solution drips onto his left arm. The fake soulmark there begins to smudge.

The one on the right stays stark and perfect.

“That’s not funny,” Foggy tells it, voice shaking, but though he scrubs at it until the skin’s raw — with the wipe, with hand sanitizer, with isopropyl — it doesn’t come off.

Eventually he’s got to face the facts. His dumb heart has somehow conned his body into producing a genuine, grade-A soulmark for his fake soulmate.

He is so monumentally _fucked_.


	2. Chapter 2

In the end, hiding the soulmark is easier than Foggy’s panicked brain thinks it will be when he first discovers it. His previous forays into the makeup aisle have primed him to venture there and track down some foundation-type stuff that can cover up tattoos. It works just as well on soulmarks, and that’s really the end of that.

The makeup only matters when Foggy goes out, after all, since Matt has no way of knowing about the mark — with him, Foggy just has to... Not mention it. Lying, even by omission, does make his stomach twist with guilt, but it’s better than the alternative. Matt’s counting on him to not get the wrong idea. Foggy’s soulmark proves he’s failed massively in that endeavor. And, like, ok, they’re besties. Matt wouldn’t just drop him over this, he wouldn’t. Foggy believes that. But it would make things awkward between them, and that would suck.

So Foggy keeps it to himself.

* * *

“You’re getting faster at this,” Matt notes as Foggy draws the scales on his arm for the umpteenth time.

He sounds like he’s smiling, but Foggy doesn’t look up to check because Matt’s smiles are unfairly distracting. He’d probably flub it up and have to start drawing in the fake soulmark all over. Not that he’s opposed to sitting pressed up next to Matt, but, well, he’s trying to be a cool platonic best buddy not a lovesick puppy.

“Just all the practice, I guess,” he murmurs, drawing in the last line. “Aha, there you go, good for another week.”

“Thanks, Fogs.”

Not having an excuse to avoid looking at Matt’s face, Foggy catches the full force of his grin head-on. He’s been building up his tolerance but it’s still... Ugh. God, just completely unfair. Foggy sighs, but can’t stop the way the corners of his mouth twitch up with fondness. He also rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling, though. Just to express the magnitude of his suffering to God for making Matt so pretty.

“No problem, buddy.”

Foggy stands up from Matt’s bed and is about to meander back to his own when a hand latches on to his.

“Foggy.”

He looks over at Matt again, and is startled to find his expression nervous and earnest.

“Yeah, Matt?”

The words are barely a whisper. Matt squeezes Foggy’s hand in both of his own.

“Thank you. Really. I know I, um.” Matt shrugs, then smiles weakly. “I know I’m not always easy to, to deal with. And I roped you into this whole thing, and—”

“Matty,” interrupts Foggy, sitting back down beside him. “That’s not... I mean, yeah, you’re a trouble magnet and I will definitely keep giving you shit for it, but I’m always on your side. I love you, man, you’re my best friend. You don’t ever have to worry that that’s gonna change, or I’m gonna get sick of you. Nelson and Murdock, remember?”

It isn’t exactly what Foggy wants to say, or at least the connotation he wants to say it with, but it is the truth. That’s good enough. Especially when Matt smiles, no trace of the guilt from before, and agrees.

“Nelson and Murdock.”

* * *

It’s the last day of the semester before winter break — and that means it’s the last day Foggy gets to pretend Matt is his soulmate. Even though Matt actually _is_ his soulmate. Not that Matt knows that.

It’s all kind of a ridiculous, soap opera mess — and, ok, that’s mostly his own fault, Foggy admits that. But still!

Anyway, for good or ill, Foggy’s expecting this final day to pass without incident. There are a lot of parties planned, but, well...

As far as Foggy can tell, Matt likes and hates parties in equal measure — likes them because they’re the ideal place for him to find hot girls to hook up with, and hates them because he’s super bothered by loud noises and strong smells. Since they’re still playing at being soulmates, Foggy’s not expecting Matt to want to go to the sorority party Marci invited them to. Well, ok, she really just invited Foggy, but she had explicitly said, “bring your boyfriend if you must” which was as close to tacit approval as Marci ever got. Of course, Foggy should’ve remembered that Matt likes both subverting expectations and annoying Marci to an entirely unhealthy degree. He’s more surprised than he should be when Matt starts herding him into getting ready that evening.

“You don’t want to be late to Marci’s party, do you?” Matt asks pointedly when Foggy complains about being nudged.

“What? You wanted to go to that?”

Matt shrugs.

“Yeah, I mean. Yeah,” he answers with about two percent of the eloquence Foggy usually expects from his grade-curve-wrecking best friend. “Unless you don’t want to.”

But it’s whenever Matt gets stammery and squirrelly that you know something’s important to him. He really wants to go to that party, for some reason, and Foggy’s happy to oblige him.

“Of course I’ll go, just gimme a sec,” he says, tugging his ratty stay-at-home hoodie over his head and donning an appropriately festive red and green sweater. “But don’t forget, no sneaking off with any of the sorority girls — you’re still mine for one more night.”

He has no idea what possesses him to say it like that (yes he does, it’s jealousy plain and simple) but as soon as the words are out Foggy pretty much only has one choice — backpedal like a maniac. He stammers through some bullshit about Stephanie Jenkins probably still watching their ruse even though he knows for a fact that she’s shifted her creepy attentions to this really hot guy in Foggy’s Punjabi class. Thankfully, Matt accepts this excuse at face value instead of digging in his heels and prying for a more reasonable explanation. They head out into the evening without any further word on the topic.

* * *

Since it’s a holiday party, the music is more cheery and festive than deafeningly loud or bass-boosted, thank god. The sorority house is decked out with garlands and lights and cheesy decorations for every winter celebration imaginable — Hanukkah, Kwanza, Christmas, Yule — and Foggy takes great relish in describing it all to Matt. There’s some kind of spiced alcoholic hot cider on offer and it tastes like the concentrated holiday magic of every Hallmark Christmas movie in history condensed into a single delicious beverage. Foggy may or may not down like ten glasses of the stuff in the first hour of the party, and then have to leave Matt on the common room couch and squeeze past two people in Santa hats making out in the hallway so he can get to the bathroom.

When Foggy returns, Matt’s no longer on the couch. He’s up and talking to some guy Foggy doesn’t recognize, but who looks like a total douche. Matt’s jaw is clenched, Foggy can tell even from across the room, and that’s a sure signal that he needs an out. That being the case, Foggy doesn’t feel bad about interrupting.

“Matty, I’m back!” he calls. “About four steps to your left, sweetheart.”

The endearment is just to keep their cover. Obviously. Definitely no other reason for it. Same for how Foggy gathers Matt into his arms a little when Matt hurries over with a relieved look on his face.

Foggy’s blatant denial is interrupted by someone clearing their throat. He tracks the sound to Marci, who points up when he turns to look at her. Tilting his head back, Foggy follows the direction of her gesture.

“Oh,” he says, staring stupidly up at the clump of green leaves and white berries dangling above his head. “Mistletoe.”

When he drops his gaze back level towards Matt, there’s a cheeky smile on his best friend’s face. Matt doesn’t look flustered at all by this development, so, good for him. Foggy, on the other hand, is getting sweaty palms like a dumb teenager.

“Well,” says Matt, trailing a hand up Foggy’s shoulder and neck to rest at his jaw, “I’ll have to take your word for it, but who am I to disregard tradition?”

Foggy would be all too happy to point out that, actually, Matt is first in line to break almost any rule he pleases — but Matt leans in and kisses him first. His aim is about half an inch off in the beginning, but he adjusts fast. Foggy can barely hear the wolf whistling and drunken cheering around them over his own pounding heart.

It’s the last night, he thinks distantly. His last chance. So he kisses Matt right back with everything he’s got.

It’s heartbreakingly perfect. So sweet and intense that it almost feels real.

That’s what hurts the most, honestly, is all the feeling Matt’s putting into his acting tonight. He’s probably imagining someone else, a girl he likes, an ex — but Foggy lets himself pretend, for a second, that it’s him Matt wants like this.

Then the kiss ends, and Foggy has to come back to reality.

The party, which had seemed pleasant and entertaining before, is pretty much the last place Foggy wants to be right now. None of these people know that that was pretty much guaranteed to be the last kiss Foggy ever gets from his soulmate. None of them know it’s not real for Matt like it is for him. Holiday cheer thoroughly dissolved by these revelations, all Foggy wants to do is get back to their room and curl up under his blankets until he stops feeling sorry for himself.

As though he realizes this, Matt soon fakes a yawn and suggests they start heading back. Foggy agrees with probably too much enthusiasm considering the speculative and knowing glances everyone is sending their way. He says his goodbyes to Marci and a few other people he knows from class, waits for Matt to do the same, then gathers their coats from the entryway.

Stepping out into the chilly winter air is honestly almost soothing, and Matt’s hand curled around his arm is a steadying pressure. Foggy takes a deep breath and lets it out as they escape the party. He still feels embarrassed — and frankly a little gloomy — but at least outside the air isn’t so stifling and there isn’t a crowd of his peers staring at him. Foggy isn’t generally a maudlin drunk, but his buzz has been seriously harshed, or whatever the kids are saying these days. He doesn’t realize quite how obvious it is until Matt shakes him by the arm and tells him that’s if he sighs one more time Matt will leave him to the wolves.

“Yeah, all those wolves we have here in New York,” retorts Foggy, but he can’t even enjoy the joke.

It’s the last night. Their ridiculous fake soulmates routine is almost up.

Matt’s never going to kiss him again.

“How much snow is there?” Matt asks out of the blue.

Foggy shrugs.

“Uh... Buttloads?” he estimates sarcastically. “I don’t know, man. Not more than a foot, but not less than six inches.”

A grin steals across Matt’s face.

“Enough for a snowman?”

Without waiting for an answer, he lets go of Foggy’s arm and crouches at the edge of the sidewalk, skimming his fingers over the snow before digging up a large handful. Foggy sighs again. Wolves do not magically appear to eat him (shocker).

“Come on, Murdock, it’s late, I’m not building a snowman with you,” he says, and starts walking again.

“Foggy,” whines Matt.

But Foggy just keeps on trucking. Matt will catch up eventually, and even if he doesn’t he’s got the best navigation skills of anyone Foggy knows. The guy’s got Columbia’s campus memorized up, down, and sideways, and is prone to taking long nighttime strolls. It’s for these reasons that Foggy doesn’t feel too bad about not caving to Matt’s ridiculous whims on this. The kiss was already too much, Foggy just needs to get back to the safety of the dorm room.

“Nope. It’s cold and I’m tired and I refuse.”

“Foggy!” Matt calls, his tone less obnoxious and more firm.

It’s that which causes Foggy to pause.

“ _What_ , Matt?”

He barely has time to turn and catch sight of what Matt has in his hand — white and round but much too small to be the base of a snowman — before it’s hurled at him with a flick of Matt’s wrist. The snowball smacks Foggy right in the kisser, knocking him off-balance. He’s only got a second to windmill his arms and try to right himself before he’s toppling backwards into the snow. For a good twenty seconds he just lies there, stunned.

“... Foggy?”

Matt’s voice is sheepish, concerned, and it snaps Foggy from his stupor. And it’s like... Foggy doesn’t even know. Like the shock of cold snow has knocked the bad mood right out of him. Matt just _beaned_ him with a _snowball_ , holy shit.

“How did you _do_ that?” Foggy demands, a delighted laugh on his lips as he sits up and wipes clumps of snow from his face.

Matt’s expression is full of wide-eyed innocence, Foggy can tell even though he’s got his shades on.

“You’re so loud, it wasn’t hard to aim.”

“Oh, that’s it!”

Foggy gathers snow in his hands, squishing it into a perfectly round shape, and sends it whizzing right at Matt’s torso without bothering to stand. The snow explodes against Matt’s coat with a quiet _poof_ noise, though the force of it knocks him back a step, sending his right foot off the path and into ankle-deep snow. Grinning, Foggy dusts himself off and stands.

“Of course you know this means war,” says Matt, very solemnly.

* * *

By the time Matt surrenders, flat on his back and half-buried in a snow drift, both their clothes are soaked through and the decision to beat a hasty retreat inside is unanimous. They tumble back into the dorm room still blowing on their hands and laughing. Foggy, who has the benefit of eyesight if not the benefit of sobriety, snags two towels from his stack of clean laundry for them to dry off with. Once they’re no longer damp with snow, they shuck their wet clothes for sweats and settle together on Matt’s bed, bundled into their duvets.

“I had fun tonight,” says Matt, very earnestly, setting his shades on his nightstand and pressing in to Foggy’s side.

“Yeah,” Foggy breathes, unable to look away from the sweet expression on Matt’s face, the way his cheeks are still flushed from the cold. “Yeah, me too.”

There’s no one around to pretend for. There’s no mistletoe hanging over them to blame. But Matt’s dark eyes are soft and warm, and his lips are upturned, and there’s barely an inch between them. Foggy could lean in. He’d barely have to move. Just a slight tip forward. Then he’d be kissing Matt, kissing his soulmate for real without any pretext to muddy the waters. Matt would know that Foggy’s meant all of this dumb act, every word, that Foggy loves him more than anything in the world.

Foggy, of course, doesn’t kiss Matt. That would be unforgivably stupid.

Instead, he breaks the tension by tapping the tip of Matt’s nose with his finger and declaring him officially free of all soulmate obligations. For a second, he almost thinks Matt looks— disappointed. But the flash of emotion is gone immediately, so Foggy tells his pathetic, hopeful heart not to read too much into it. Matt is the bravest person Foggy knows; if he wanted Foggy, he would’ve said.

Foggy curls up in his own bed that night content that he at least managed the tact to keep his feelings to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

And so, their little fake soulmark scheme plays itself out without any fanfare at all. No one notices when it stops, since they got all their teasing out at the beginning. Matt goes back to flirting around, sleeping around, but never with anyone from the university. Foggy gives Marci back her pens and keeps investing in the tattoo-covering makeup.

Life goes on.

A year, three years, five years, ten... Law school, bar exam, internship, Nelson and Murdock... Most of the time Foggy doesn’t even think about it anymore, except on the few occasions that he and Matt joke about how married they are. The soulmark is a total non-entity. Especially once everything around them dissolves into chaos because of Fisk – Foggy’s got more important things to focus on.

Until the night everything gets too close. Until the night after Elena’s death, when Foggy drunkenly bangs into Matt’s apartment to find him passed out on the floor. You know, in a pool of his own blood.

Oh yeah, and just to make everything even better, Matt also happens to be wearing a black mask.

That’s about the time that Foggy’s whole world turns horribly on its head. For the first hour after peeling back that ratty black cloth to find Matt’s face underneath, he only has room to deal with the fear that Matt’s going to die. He alternates between staring at Matt’s pale, unconscious face and down at the soulmark on his arm — scrubbed clean so Foggy will be able to tell if it starts to fade — while Matt’s hot nurse friend sews him up with firm determination. She doesn’t comment on the mark. She also doesn’t tell him anything about... About whatever the hell it is Matt thinks he’s doing.

Matt has brief moments of consciousness, though hardly any of lucidity. But apparently, it’s enough that the nurse, who still pointedly refuses to introduce herself, feels ok to pack up and leave Matt in Foggy’s rather useless care.

“Thank you,” Foggy manages to rasp out when she reaches the door, because even if everything about this situation is monumentally horrible, he’s still got manners. “For helping him this time and... And whatever you’ve done for him before this.”

The nurse’s eyes soften.

“It was the right thing to do,” she offers. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

A sharp laugh bursts from his lips.

“Yeah. Me too.”

It’s too bitter. Well, no, it’s just the right amount of bitter, but this woman has nothing to do with Foggy and Matt’s drama and she doesn’t deserve to be dragged into it. Foggy scrubs a hand over his face and sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m being rude. Thank you, again. I... I’ll look after him.”

She nods and leaves without a goodbye. It’s only after that — pacing the room and pressing a hand to Matt’s forehead to check for fever and desperately wanting to go back to being drunk instead of hungover — when the betrayal starts to set in. _How could I not have known about this_ , he asks himself, meaning both ‘how could Matt have hidden this from me’ and ‘how could I not have realized this was happening right under my nose’. Both are utterly inconceivable. And yet, they’re both true. How much of what the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has been accused of has Matt done? How many people has he hurt?

Hell, how can he fight in the first place? Matt’s dad was a boxer, yeah, and he’s got a temper, but it’s a pretty big hurdle to jump when you literally can’t see the guy you want to punch.

Unless you can.

Which is ridiculous. Foggy knows Matt can’t see.

But what other explanation is there? Sure there’s really talented blind martial artists out there, but as far as Foggy knows, Matt hasn’t had any formal training. Not to mention, an official match with rules is way different than a street fight with multiple armed opponents all looking to kill you. There’s no answer to the riddle. So Foggy waits and he paces and he washes his face in Matt’s kitchen sink and he doesn’t throw up or drink any of Matt’s beer, which should probably earn him some kind of sainthood, honestly.

At last, Matt wakes. Foggy doesn’t see it, but he hears him groan, hears the slight tear of medical tape being pulled from skin.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he says, trying for cold but knowing his voice is shaking. “But hey, what the hell do I know about Matt Murdock.”

It just gets worse from there. Foggy’s not being his best self, and he knows that. But he’s also grieving and hungover and coming off the adrenaline of almost watching his soulmate die and he hasn’t eaten in something like twelve hours. That’s on top of all the strain he’s been under the last few months — both financially and professionally. He’s scraped raw and it’s like every word out of Matt’s mouth pisses him off more with how absolutely batshit crazy it is. There had been some small part of Foggy that held onto the vain hope that this was all a misunderstanding, that Matt wearing that getup was a, a trick somehow.

It’s not a trick. Matt’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, has been since practically right after they quit L&Z. He was trained to fight as a kid by an old man like he’s the fucking Karate Kid or something, and now he’s using that training to fight organized crime like a lunatic.

All of that is bad enough on its own — the lying, putting himself in danger, breaking the law, putting Karen and Foggy in danger with him and not even having the courtesy to let them know. But that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is in the ‘how’ of things. How Matt can do what he does. Sure, his eyes don’t work, but apparently he ‘sees’ more than anybody around him who has actual eyesight because those chemicals that burned away one sense magnified the others – and he’s been using them to polygraph the entire world. And Foggy? Foggy’s been where he’s always been, right in the splash zone.

Which means Matt...

“Any time I wasn’t telling the truth, you knew?” Foggy demands, and feels the first blush of complete and utter humiliation. “And, what, you just played along?”

The corner of Matt’s mouth turns up, but the expression isn’t a smile. He’s given up trying to squirm his way out of giving answers by this point.

“Basically.”

Foggy can’t bear to ask more directly, but Matt’s reply is telling enough. He knows. He’s always known. The worst part is that Foggy’s not sure which to be more mortified by — the fact that all this time Matt’s been aware of the truth, of the soulmark, of Foggy’s feelings... Or the fact that it’s clearly a one-sided bond, unless Matt has a soulmark hiding under his boxers somewhere, which he obviously doesn’t. It’s just Foggy alone here. Foggy, who got the wrong idea even after Matt trusted him not to. Foggy, who was never worth telling the truth to about anything. The more he thinks about it and the more they argue over Matt’s brand new super-illegal extracurricular, the more incensed Foggy gets.

Matt was his best friend, and he was... What? Just a cover? He doesn’t want to believe that, not with Matt breaking down into tears in front of him, but... But he’s lied to Foggy every day for almost a decade. He’s known everything about Foggy, and Foggy’s realizing that maybe he knows nothing about Matt at all. And how could someone like that really be his friend?

* * *

Foggy leaves. He can’t handle looking at Matt anymore and knowing he knows and that he almost died and just... Maybe his own humiliation and fear should be taking a back seat to how much he loves Matt, but they’re not. So Foggy leaves his soulmate lying on a couch all beat to hell — by, by a fucking ninja, seriously, that’s the life they’re all living now — like an asshole.

And he goes to Marci. Like even more of an asshole. He tries to tell himself it’s fine, because Matt doesn’t want him anyway, but it’s a pretty flimsy excuse.

“You look like shit,” Marci says at the doorway; she still lets him in, though.

Foggy can only manage a bitter laugh, instead of his usual rude, witty rejoinder. Marci, kindly, doesn’t comment. She probably should after what he said to her in their confrontation at L&Z, but she must be at least as rattled as he is by Elena’s death. There are circles beneath her eyes that she’s covered with makeup, and her skin is a little too pale.

They talk. They commiserate. They decide to collude. And then they fuck, because they’re predictable like that.

Afterwards, Marci rolls onto her side to stare at Foggy’s arm, looking puzzled, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that he never re-covered his soulmark.

“You’re not still doing that, are you, Foggy Bear?” she snorts, tracing the top of her nail over the lines of it.

Foggy shivers, and doesn’t comment. No matter what he tells her it’ll be damning. And then Marci’s eyes widen. Her hand closes around his wrist.

“This is the wrong arm,” she says. “You’re right-handed, there’s no way you could make it look this smooth using...”

“Marci. Don’t.”

She traces the mark again, this time with the pad of her finger so she can feel the way it rises just slightly from the rest of his skin, like a scar.

“God, it’s real,” she breathes. “And you haven’t even attempted to build a disgusting love nest with Murdock? Not once?”

Foggy tugs his arm from her grip and rolls onto his side, to face away from her.

“I don’t want to talk about Matt,” he says.

He can hear Marci sigh, and even though he refuses to turn back to check he can guess she’s pressing a hand to her face in exasperation.

“I figured you two were on the outs if you came here, but seriously? It’s that bad?”

“Yeah,” he tells her – what else is there to say? “Pretty much.”

* * *

It dawns on Foggy at some point that he’s maybe being a bit hypocritical. That Matt’s reason for not mentioning the soulmark might be the same as Foggy’s — he didn’t want it to ruin their friendship.

And the rest of it? Well, the facts are that Matt’s got weird superpowers, a healthy and not entirely unwarranted dose of paranoia, and abandonment issues that can be seen from space. Foggy isn’t an idiot, even if he’s a jerk. The math isn’t hard to do. Of course he never said anything — he was afraid of being left again.

Which Foggy kind of did to him. You know, like a dick.

With all that in mind, Foggy gathers up what information he and Marci have collected and sets out to find Matt. He’s not in his apartment, or at church, or the office. He is at Fogwell’s though, which could be either a good sign or a bad one — Matt only goes to Fogwell’s when he’s got too many feelings and not enough emotional intelligence to process them.

“I thought Nelson and Murdock was over,” Matt says, bitter, when Foggy suggests working together again.

It’s his own turn for honesty, Foggy supposes. Maybe Matt can always tell, but this time Foggy wants him to know it’s deliberate, that it’s knowledge he’s offering to Matt.

“I don’t want it to be,” he admits. “I was… All that stuff I found out, Matt, it messed me up. You didn’t trust me, with anything. But if you’re really my friend, if you want… Just tell me what you want. I thought I knew before, but I didn’t. I don’t.”

Matt ducks his head and fiddles with the wraps on his hands for a minute or so. But then he nods and straightens up, turning his face towards Foggy’s. The set of his shoulders is familiar and brave.

“I can’t go back to listening and doing nothing when people are in danger, when they’re hurt,” he says. “I won’t stop putting on the mask. And things can’t be like they were before, we both know that. But you’re my best friend, Foggy, that was never a lie. I don’t want to lose you. So, so maybe we can move forward together. That’s… If you’re willing, that’s what I want.”

 _Is it any wonder I’m in love with this guy_ , Foggy thinks helplessly.

He’s still hurt. Still afraid. But even with a new, wacky backstory and adrenaline-junkie-esque street fighting tendencies to factor into things, Foggy can see it now – that Matt is still Matt.

“Together,” he agrees.

The hopeful, startled smile on Matt’s face is too much. Foggy hugs him as tight as he can.

* * *

Working together again pays off. Karen finds the magical missing piece of the puzzle, Matt finds Hoffman, and Foggy finds himself representing a crooked cop as he flips on Fisk’s entire operation. The rest seems to go in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. Seizure of documents, an absolutely unholy number of arrests, and Fisk being led away in handcuffs cap off the evening. It’s the best ending Foggy could have hoped for.

Their shit luck can’t be that good, though. Right when they’re all patting themselves on the back, Fisk breaks out. Foggy and Matt send Karen home. Foggy thinks they should send both of themselves home too, but Matt is determined to run headlong into danger’s waiting arms, more than likely in those stupid black pajamas. Foggy makes a very cogent point about Fisk being twice Matt’s size and having kicked his ass before.

“You almost died last time, Matt,” Foggy says, and the words burn in his throat like bile. “You can’t... Don’t make me go through that again.”

“Trust me,” pleads Matt.

What he means is believe in me, believe in what I’m doing, and don’t doubt me. It’s a tall order. But Foggy can do it. Will do it if that’s what Matt needs to win.

“Go be a hero,” Foggy tells him at last, because those are the best words he can give with fear constructing his heart.

* * *

And Matt does. He stops Fisk. He saves the day. He comes back.

Foggy fishes their sign out of the trash, and hangs it outside the building. He’s even feeling light enough to joke about it — Matt’s new moniker, Daredevil. The ridiculous little horns on his new helmet. But deep down there’s still a part of him that’s unsettled. Embarrassed and off-balance and itchy, because Matt knows about the soulmark. He’ll get over it, he will, he just needs... He doesn’t know what he needs.

Matt does, though, maybe without even realizing it.

“Avocados at law,” he says over his shoulder with the literal dumbest grin on his face, and suddenly all is right with the world.


	4. Chapter 4

For a while, things are actually fine. Foggy’s settling into his new normal. The city’s as quiet as it can be. Matt still gets the shit kicked out of him sometimes, but those times happen less and he smiles more than he has since before L&Z. Karen still seems to have something on her mind, but she too is smiling more now that Fisk is safely behind bars. And they have a nice long list of clients too, even if most of them are paying in baked goods instead of cash.

Which is of course when Elliot Grote, aka Grotto, barrels into their lives and blows Foggy’s new equilibrium all to hell.

He’s a gang member, but then, so are a lot of people. He’s also bleeding. That’s of more import. Karen offers to take him to the hospital, and Foggy and Matt go to bother Brett for details about the gang massacres Grotto clues them in about.

It’s... It’s even worse than Foggy had imagined. And Matt’s going to go out in it. Foggy keeps his left hand clamped around his right arm, right over his soulmark, as his heart beats nearly out of his chest. Probably Matt wouldn’t even need his super ears to hear it. But as usual, Foggy’s fear isn’t enough to sway Matt from doing the things he thinks he has to do.

“You don’t even know how many of them there are,” Foggy points out. “Are you seriously going to go out there in your suped-up pajamas and fight them? When none of the rest of these gangs — who had guns of their own, mind you! — stood a chance?”

Matt shakes his head.

“I can’t just let more people die, Fogs. This is... I have to stop this. I have to. And...” Matt offers up a look of amusement that’s as fragile as a wet napkin. “They’re not pajamas — not nearly comfortable enough.”

Foggy wants to reach out. Grab Matt’s hand and not let go. That would be stupid, though.

“Just... Be careful, will you?” he asks instead, and catches a wry little smirk on Matt’s face as he turns to leave.

“Always am.”

Foggy scoffs. He doesn’t need supersonic hearing to know _that’s_ a fucking lie. But, there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s also not about to go home like a good little civilian sidekick and wait for a call either, though. Maybe he’s not like, a big bad vigilante who can beat the truth out of people, but he’s Foggy Nelson and he knows everyone. Including a member of the Dogs of Hell biker gang that got shot up outside the city. If he can just talk to Smitty, get an idea of what horrible people Matt’s throwing himself up against... Maybe that’ll be enough.

* * *

Foggy’s visit does not go to plan.

The bikers nearly dislocate his arm and threaten to kill him before he can get his purpose out. Smitty is dead, one of the guys killed in the attack. And even worse than all that? It wasn’t a rival gang. Not a new kingpin and his posse. All that destruction, all those dead bikers and gangsters?

The work of one man. One man who’ll kill anyone that gets in his way, who hasn’t had any trouble at all against groups of thirty men or more.

Still a little sore, and reeling from what he’s learned, Foggy drags himself back to his apartment. It’s late. All-the-bars-are-closed late. And he hasn’t gotten a call from Matt, which is stressful, to say the least. Foggy’s instinct is to drink, but he doesn’t, just in case he’s needed later. Instead he settles into bed with his phone to wait for the all clear.

His soulmark is still black, at least. The mark is still there. He has to keep checking, keep telling himself. It’s still there.

It’s still... Foggy yawns. Still there. It’s... Still...

There...

* * *

When Foggy wakes up, before he even looks at his phone for missed calls and to check the time, he looks at his arm.

The mark is still there. He strokes a thumb over it, feels the slight, scar-like ridge of the soulmark. Then he shakes his head and grabs his cell off the bedside table. No missed calls. Nothing.

He calls Karen, who’s safe with Grotto at the 15th Precinct. They’d been shot at but apparently that didn’t rank on the ‘worrying enough to call Foggy about’ scale anymore. Foggy makes a mental note to contest that later, and shoves down any traitorous thoughts reminding him he isn’t exactly volunteering to tell Karen he almost got gutted by a bar full of bikers.

More important than any of that is that Karen hasn’t heard from Matt. Which is... It’s not great. Foggy traces his soulmark, over and over, to calm himself. It hasn’t faded. Promising to go check on Matt — and thankful that Karen doesn’t have super heating to tell he’s lying when he insists Matt probably just crashed as soon as he got back to his apartment and hasn’t woken up yet — Foggy hangs up and gets ready. Between frantically dressing and packing his satchel, he calls Matt. Once. Twice. No answer. He rolls up his right sleeve so he doesn’t have to move it to keep his soulmark in sight, then heads out.

The hospital is his first stop, because that’s where Karen and Grotto were attacked. But before he even steps inside, he overhears a couple of cops talking about shots being fired from a nearby rooftop. If this guy, this killer after Grotto, was shooting, Matt would have heard and come running. Come to protect Karen and his nurse friend and the hospital. But if he went up against this guy...

Foggy takes a shaky breath in and out, stares at his soulmark until his heart stops pounding against his ribcage. Then he squares his shoulders and starts searching. It takes three buildings, a lot of buzzing, and more curse words than he cares to count before Foggy climbs out a roof access door to see a figure in red body armor collapsed in a heap. He runs towards Matt, but it feels like moving through molasses, like one of those nightmares where no matter how hard you push you never get faster than a jog.

Finally, finally, an age later, Foggy’s knelt on the roof, pulling Matt’s head onto his lap — and his heart stops at the way Matt’s helmet is cracked down the middle. Hands shaking, Foggy takes the helmet off. The bullet didn’t make it all the way through the armor, thank fucking god, but Matt’s so horribly still. His face is pale, and there’s no peace to his slack expression. He doesn’t stir, doesn’t shift or twitch, the only movement in his whole body is in his shallow breaths.

“Matt, Matty, hey.” Foggy’s voice breaks — he swallows, sniffs, strokes a hand through Matt’s mussed hair. “Come on, don’t do this to me. C-come on, Matt.”

There’s a quiet groan. Matt’s eyelids flutter. He makes a garbled, questioning noise that might be Foggy’s name.

“That’s right, buddy, I’ve got you. It’s gonna be ok.”

Foggy means that, more than anything he’s ever said in his life. He’s going to make sure Matt’s ok. Seeing Matt like this makes him think of— That night. Matt was pale then, too, from all the blood he lost. But Foggy can’t focus on that, not right now when Matt needs him. There’s nothing to do but tuck away his panic and drag them both back to Matt’s apartment. It could have been worse, he reminds himself with every step, even though the thought makes him sick. Matt’s going to be just fine. It could have been worse.

* * *

Mercifully, Matt agrees to stay home and rest. It’s worth having to face the DA without him. Foggy’s never personally met DA Reyes until this day, but he finds that she’s what his Ma would call ‘a real piece of work’. She won’t protect Grotto without getting something in return. Desperate for safety, Grotto agrees. One small meeting, Reyes assures them, but Foggy feels a pit of unease opening in his stomach.

* * *

As always, Foggy’s worries are well-founded. Reyes doesn’t want Edgar Brass, she wants the guy chasing Grotto. The Punisher, as the vigilante task force has started calling him. Karen’s righteous anger flares on cue, and Foggy wishes he were as spirited, as brave as her. He’s not. He stops her from running out to warn Grotto. This is their only choice. He’s upset, but resigned to it.

At least until Daredevil crashes the party.

It’s instinct. And Foggy’s a hypocrite but— Matt is in danger. Nothing else really matters. He’s seen what the Punisher does to people who get in his way. He’s picked Matt’s practically comatose body up off a rooftop once already, he’s not looking to have to deal with that ever again.

So he rushes out the door, into the middle of Reyes’s operation.

Not that it does him any good, in the end. Not that it earns him anything but her ire. Foggy’s tired of giving a fuck, though. Reyes wants to play hardball? Fine. Foggy can play hardball. He can spit acid right back at her, because there’s no goddamn time for her self-serving assholery.

Matt and the Punisher are gone. Foggy tugs up his sleeve to make sure his soulmark is still there, but all that tells him is if Matt’s alive. He needs a little more reassurance than that. Whether it’s optimism or pessimism guiding his steps, the first place Foggy goes is the hospital. The ER is littered with gang members cuffed to their gurneys — victims of the gang war ripple effect of the Punisher’s crusade. Foggy tries not to think about that, keeps his focus on locating Matt’s nurse friend.

Finally, he finds her, stocking back up on bandages.

“Hey.”

She looks up, and recognition crosses her face.

“Hi,” she greets, and he sees her name tag — Claire Temple.

“I’m. I’m Foggy Nelson. I don’t know if you remember me. We um,” Foggy tries to think of a discreet way to bring up Daredevil. “Have a mutual friend.”

The look the nurse — Claire — gives him is skeptical in the extreme and tells him she absolutely remembers him. And what’s on his arm.

“Friend?”

Foggy can practically feel his ears go pink, and his hand closes over his soulmark. He gets why she’s trying to call him on his pretty obvious bullshit, but he doesn’t exactly feel like detailing the complicated nature of his status as Matt’s unwanted soulmate to her.

“I just need to know if you’ve seen him tonight. I don’t know where he is.”

“Ah.” Claire’s expression hardens, and Foggy can see a spark of worry in her eyes. “No, I haven’t seen him. Actually, I haven’t seen him at all since the night he almost... The night you and I met.”

Foggy’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. By the look on her face, Claire isn’t either.

He’s about to thank her and continue his search when a shouting match breaks out in the ward. Two gangsters. They’re scaring the shit out of the other patients, and they’re going to get someone hurt. So Foggy steps in with the only weapon he’s got — his words. He shouts them down like the idiots they are, shaking the whole time. But they listen. They listen, and that’s all that matters.

Foggy continues his search.

It’s nearly three in the morning by the time he gives up and drags himself home. The mark is still black. Foggy lets that be enough, and finally surrenders to his drooping eyelids.

* * *

Matt turns up the next day, battered and weary with a haunted expression. But he’s alive.

Grotto isn’t so lucky.

Matt’s priest agrees to do a service for him — but, Foggy thinks, more than for Grotto’s immortal soul it’s probably about creating some small measure of comfort for the three of them — Matt, Karen, and Foggy. No one else shows up to the funeral. And though she and Grotto are as different as can be, Foggy’s reminded of Elena. The city is full of people like them — people who fall through the cracks, who get forgotten, who have no one to care if they live or die. A heavy weight settles on his heart.

* * *

Foggy, dumb masochist that he is, pushes Karen and Matt together. Matt doesn’t want him, and it’s pretty obvious there’s something between those two, so. You know. It’s better than the alternative, he tells himself. Karen is beautiful and tough and she and Matt deserve to be happy. If they’re happy with each other, well, Foggy’s ok being the third wheel. Really. Truth is, their whole firm needs some good news right now. It’s for the best.

* * *

The tensions in the city come to a head when, with Matt’s help, the cops finally get their hands on the Punisher — one Frank Castle. And, like the crusading, lost-cause-obsessed idiots they are, Matt and Karen want to pull Castle’s case away from the public defender assigned to it and defend him themselves. They go to the hospital for that purpose, in one of the most terrifying visits of Foggy’s life. Even handcuffed to a bed, even unable to walk, the man exudes menace like a smokestack belching smog. He doesn’t even want their help. But Karen convinces him, and she and Matt want this so badly, and... And there’s a soulmark scar — the raised, inkless skin that’s all that remains when a person’s soulmate dies — half-visible past the left sleeve of his hospital gown. It’s a flower of some sort, he thinks. Seeing it makes Foggy fidget with the cuff of his own sleeve, makes his guts burn with nausea.

Fine, he contents himself with in the end, still feeling sick. Fine. Castle’s genuinely fucked up, but he’s agreed to take a damn plea deal, which is more than enough considering those thirty-plus murders he _actually did one hundred percent commit_. It’ll be easy. Simple. Painless. In and out and on with their lives.

Except that as soon as Castle gets one good look at Reyes’s face, he decides fuck the plea deal, he’s gonna make her take this shitshow to court.

And just like that, they’re defending a murderer in the biggest case of their lives, and going up directly against the DA — who, hey, already hates their guts — to do it. Awesome. Just what Foggy wanted.

* * *

The case is a nightmare, but ADA Tower apparently went behind his boss’s back to get Karen more information about Castle and the coverup Reyes headed about the day that destroyed his life. Wife and kids killed, him in a coma, suspicious circumstances. Foggy doesn’t like Castle, not one bit, but the injustice, the lack of accountability in how he lost his family? The way Reyes has been putting people in danger over and over for her own image? That he can fight against. Reyes is corrupt and she’s going down. Fuck her for trying to cover up her mistakes, for threatening their firm, for getting Grotto killed because the life of a two-bit gangster was worth nothing to her compared to her image.

So Foggy channels his anger — not into extrajudicial vigilante justice like some people, Murdock — into doing his job. Working to make their case the best they can. The information about the falsified medical reports that Tower gave them is gonna blow the whole case wide open. And with Matt opening for them? Foggy has all the confidence in the world.

Except that Matt’s late. And then Matt’s more than late and the court is watching and the judge is frowning and Reyes and her team are going to eat them alive. So Foggy stands up and he looks at Frank Castle, and he tries to do what Karen did — to see something in him worth saving.

And then he opens his mouth and speaks.

* * *

They live to fight another day, no thanks to Matt’s continued truancy, and it’s finally time to question the medical examiner who is hopefully gonna make their case.

And... The guy cracks without even a push. Miraculous. Weird as hell. Maybe his guilt got to him like Tower’s did. Either way, they’re going to win. Holy fuck they are going to get what they want, they’re going to beat Reyes, they’re going to win. Not get Castle off, that was an impossibility from the start, and frankly not at all what Foggy wants or thinks Castle deserves. But they’re going to expose Reyes’s corruption. They’re going to get the death penalty off the table. They’re going to get Castle into a mental institution instead of a prison, where he can hopefully get the help he needs to deal with the traumatic death of his family.

Everything is perfect.

Until the medical examiner says a woman threatened him into testifying.

And just like that. Just like that, their game-changer is null and void.

* * *

When they’ve all been dismissed, Foggy storms into the bathroom to splash water on his face. In the mirror, it’s splotchy and red with his barely-leashed anger. He almost doesn’t notice Matt enter after him, he’s too busy working himself up.

Threatened? The medical examiner was threatened? By a woman? The only woman on their side who knew about the coverup is Karen, and there’s no fucking way she did it. They’ve been set up.

Foggy’s already pacing, just about to blow his top.

“Reyes,” he seethes, “she did something, she—”

“Foggy.”

Matt’s voice is wavering, almost guilty, and it stops him short. A cold, horrible feeling slithers its way into Foggy’s gut.

* * *

Elektra. Fucking Elektra. Foggy would be mad enough to hear her name again even without her obliterating his carefully constructed case.

But no. No. She blew back into Matt’s life and he went right the fuck along with her, without even saying a word to Foggy about it. No, Matt just dropped everything, exactly like he had in college. Even worse, he lied, like he’s been doing since the beginning, like he promised to stop when they put the pieces of their firm and their friendship back together, and Foggy is— just, so sick of all of it. This isn’t—

He wants to say it isn’t Matt, but it is, clearly, and that’s what really pisses him off. Matt’s mad at Elektra for threatening the ME? It’s his fault she was even in a position to do it! He could have, should have told her off and walked away the instant she showed up. But he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew he could shirk his responsibilities to go galavanting off into the night and Foggy, the ol’ ball and chain, the pining, unwanted soulmate, would pick up the slack on the Castle case.

“Stop acting like these things just happen to you!”

Foggy shouts, and it’s like all the tension, all the stress of worrying about the case and the firm and Matt’s fucking life —because Matt doesn’t seem to give a shit about any of it — has lit a fire in his veins. “No one’s making you go out at all hours of the night fighting bad guys and nobody makes you lie to your friends, over and over again! Elektra is not the problem, Matt. _You_ are.”

“Foggy—”

“It’s almost dark,” Foggy says, because he’s a passive-aggressive asshole when he’s upset, and because Matt deserves it for pushing him to take this case and then dropping the ball completely. “I’m sure there’s someplace you’ve gotta be.”

“You’re not walking away.”

It’s said like an order. It’s said like Matt’s not going to let him walk away. Fat fucking chance. Matt has never raised a hand against Foggy in the decade they’ve known each other, and he had better know not to do it now.

“No, you don’t get to decide that,” Foggy tells him, turning for the door. “‘Cause you know what?”

When Matt grabs his shoulder from behind, Foggy shrugs him off, but that just seems to fuel Matt’s desperation. He stumbles closer, yanks Foggy back to face him and tries to hold him in place.

“Don’t walk away from me, Foggy!”

In the midst of his frantic clutching at Foggy’s arms, Matt’s hand closes right over top of the soulmark.

It hurts.

Not physically, not the mark itself. More like someone’s reached under his ribs and grabbed his heart and twisted. Foggy jerks away — from Matt, from the pain.

“Don’t touch me!” he snaps, and even he isn’t sure if it’s more fear or anger. “You don’t get to— You haven’t been here, Matt, and I can’t trust you to be here now. Going forward, I will count on you for _nothing_ at all.”

Foggy can’t even bear to look at Matt, so he wheels back around and storms for the exit. There’s a spark of pettiness in him, buried just below the surface, that makes him toss one last barb over his shoulder.

“Tell your girlfriend to stay away from my trial.”

“Yeah, she’s not— Elektra’s not my girlfriend,” Matt stammers, and the objection is so inane that it throws Foggy for a loop, makes him stumble to a stop with his hand on the doorknob.

 _What the hell do I care about that_ , he thinks, because whichever of the two women in his life Matt’s really in love with, the result for Foggy is the same. But that’s not right, because Karen is Foggy’s friend, and she’s brave and stubborn and loyal, and she doesn’t deserve to be tossed aside. So what he says is:

“Then you should be the one to tell Karen about her.”

He storms off, doesn’t stay to explain things to Karen either, and he knows he’ll feel guilty about it later, but in the moment Foggy just needs— out.

* * *

Things are down, and then they’re back up again for a little bit with Schoonover’s slam dunk of a testimony, which Foggy handles alone with copious amounts of moral support from Karen, and then—

Well, then the case implodes. The case fucking implodes when Matt — after promising, promising to do his part, to make things up to Foggy — interrogates their client like he’s on cross instead of direct, and Castle loses his shit and starts screaming that he would do it all over again if he could.

They lose. Obviously.

Castle goes to Rikers, the DA is about to obliterate their law firm, and all Matt has to say in defense of his bullshit is that he’s _done apologizing for who he is_. And then? Then, after all that? Castle breaks out of jail. And it’s… He’s the one who fucked up his own case, yeah, but he’s also completely out of his mind. So who the hell knows if he’s put Foggy and Karen and Matt on his hit list?

Is it really only a couple months ago that Foggy thought things were looking up? That the world was their oyster? The world is not an oyster, it’s a Venus flytrap, and Foggy’s the fly.

He’s not even surprised anymore when Reyes summons him — you know, politely, with armed police officers. Or when Karen and Matt show up too. The DA is losing her grip on this whole Punisher thing, so her next move is probably gonna be to threaten them some more or accuse them of helping Castle escape. Scapegoat them. You know, instead of doing something actually useful.

And at first it really does seem to be going that way. But then Reyes breaks. Tells them about the shit she pulled, the real reason for the coverup, the reason Castle hates her, the reason he’s been targeting those gangs. A sting gone wrong, and the Castles caught in the middle of it because she didn’t clear the park. Foggy, for one, would be perfectly happy to throw Reyes to the wolves for that one — once again choosing her career over the people of her city. But... She doesn’t care about her job anymore, she tells them, because she thinks Castle is coming for her kid. Her baby girl.

Before Foggy can really digest this information, the glass of the window behind Reyes shatters. Foggy’s shoved to the floor. For three seconds everything is just noise and chaos.

And then the pain hits him. Blazing hot, burning through his left shoulder. He can’t do anything but gasp, ears ringing. He doesn’t know how long he lies there on the floor, doesn’t even know if the shooter is still firing or if they’ve stopped. But through his watering eyes, when someone leans over him, he knows immediately who that person is.

“Foggy,” Matt says, sounding frantic, and then he presses his palms hard into the already agonizing gunshot wound and his voice fades a bit when the pain makes Foggy white out. “—me, stay with me, an ambulance is coming, just. F-Foggy, just stay awake. Foggy, please, I.”

Foggy tries to answer, but his tongue feels thick in his mouth and it tastes like blood. The room’s spinning and this is worse than the explosion, than the shard of glass in his side, he’s in so much _pain_ —

“I know,” Matt says with tears dripping from the frames of his glasses onto Foggy’s cheek. “I know it hurts, I know, I’m so sorry, just please stay awake. Keep, keep talking Fogs, ok? Keep talking.”

Talking, yeah, Foggy can keep talking. He’s always talking, he never shuts up. And there’s something important, he wants to say it even though Matt already knows, even though Foggy’s still mad at him, even though... Just. He still wants to say it. In case he’s dying.

“You’re not dying, you won’t die, I won’t let you,” Matt promises, fiercely, still crying.

Foggy almost manages to wheeze out a laugh. So much hubris wrapped up in one beautiful, ridiculous man. But Foggy doesn’t have much room to talk about ridiculousness — because he believes every word. He hangs on, stays awake until the EMTs arrive to patch him up. He’s half-upright on a stretcher by the time the last of the medical professionals move away and he can see Matt again. Matt, who’s pale and whose hands are covered in dried blood that flakes off as he twists his cane in a comfortingly familiar nervous tic.

“How you feel?” he asks Foggy.

Matt swallows, then, his throat bobbing. Foggy tries to stay lighthearted for his sake.

“Like I've been shot. EMT says I'll be fine, though.”

“Right.”

It’s just one word, but it’s loaded with meaning. With guilt and anger. With a need to go out and fix the problem, preferably with fists. And Foggy tries his best to dissuade Matt from chasing after the Punisher. But Matt’s sure he knows where to look, and he’s not in a listening mood.

“I’m not asking for your permission,” Matt says, in the end. “I’m telling you that this is what I’m doing. Alright? I’ll. I’ll see you later.”

It’s like a switch has flipped. Matt’s face turns hard and determined as he strides off — without a moment of hesitation. Doesn’t turn back when Foggy calls his name.

Any illusion of safety Foggy felt goes with him.

* * *

Foggy waits, there in the hospital. Waits and waits. But Matt doesn’t come.

And it’s fine, right? It’s always been fine. Because Matt always knew, and Matt never felt the same.

Only it’s not fine at all. Foggy had thought at least that they were still friends, that Matt still... That Matt would still care once Foggy’s life was out of danger. That he’d wanted Foggy to stay alive for more than just to spare him guilt. But his best friend, his soulmate, doesn’t bother to visit him. Not once. There’s no call, either. No cards or flowers. Not even a message passed through Karen.

Two short years ago, Foggy would have had no doubts about Matt visiting him — if he’d been hospitalized, god forbid for something as serious as a gunshot wound, Matt would have been sitting next to his bed as long as the hospital staff allowed. He’d have held Foggy’s hand and refused to leave despite the fact that he’s hated hospitals with every fiber of his being ever since his accident. He’d have snuck in some of Foggy’s unhealthiest comfort snacks and fretted like the socially-awkward mother hen he secretly was.

Now? Now Foggy’s not even worth a brush-off excuse. He’s less of a priority to Matt than he thought he was, _again_ , and it... It hurts. The kind of hurt that won’t go away no matter how many painkillers the nurses give him.

* * *

By the time Foggy can reasonably check himself out of the hospital, he’s reached acceptance; he knows it’s really over. The firm, their friendship, everything. Matt’s made his choice. The most Foggy can hope for is a clean break, something... Something that’ll heal quickly.

A total farce of a hope, with Matt etched into his skin, into his soul. But maybe it’ll be easier, not having to confront it day in and day out. Not having to try and smile through it.

Packing up at the office is its own kind of torture, with Matt there looking hurt and miserable, but at least he doesn’t ask Foggy to stay — because Foggy knows himself well enough to know that he’d probably cave. This is for the best, he’s able to tell himself, to steel his resolve. The firm was Foggy’s dream; no matter how badly Matt feels about it breaking up, he clearly has other priorities.

* * *

With the firm dissolving, Foggy knows he needs to look for a job. He just... Doesn’t quite have the energy for it. Especially when he considers how the Castle case has probably tanked his career for good. But Marci does have the energy, and she blows through like a tornado, bringing a brunch with one of her bosses in her wake.

And, well, it’s not like Foggy has much to lose. He accepts, and finds himself at an uncomfortably upscale restaurant sitting across from Jeri Hogarth of Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz.

And it turns out HCB wants him. They actually want him. Hogarth pays for the entirety of their extremely fancy lunch and hands him the papers and... The salary is mind boggling. The benefits are unbelievable. Foggy is going to kiss Marci for giving Hogarth his name. It’s exactly what he needs.

Just for the sake of image, he takes a day to think about it, to look everything over, to do a little research of his own. But it was pretty much a done deal from the moment he sat down across from Hogarth.

Foggy takes the job.

* * *

It’s dark when Brett calls to say that Karen was kidnapped — along with a shitload of other people Daredevil saved in the past. Foggy just about has a conniption. Of course, by the time he makes it to the police barricade, Karen’s safe and sound. For a relative understanding of the words, anyway, based on the tale she tells. Karen’s been through so much shit Foggy can barely imagine in the past week, while he’s been doing physical therapy he can only now hope to pay for thanks to HCB’s health benefits. She’s been nearly killed two more times, which brings her new total up to something like five. Personally Foggy thinks the universe should cut her a damn break by now, but the universe doesn’t listen to Foggy. Usually it just laughs in his face.

His days sound pretty boring in comparison, when Karen asks him, hands still shaking a little, what he’s been up to. But she’s supportive of his new job opportunity, even if there’s a hint of sadness around her eyes.

“How did they get your name?” she asks. “Frank’s case?”

“Well, despite it being a complete tire fire, it did help. Marci set it up for me, though — it’s where she’s been working,” Foggy explains.

“That was nice of her.”

“Yeah. You know... I’ve got some pull,” he says, trying for a smile. “If you want, I’ll push Hogarth to bring you in with me.”

But Karen shakes her head.

“No, I think... Well, Ellison offered me a job at the Bulletin and... I’m going to take it. It feels right.”

She looks determined. Sure of herself. And if this is what she’s decided, then Foggy’s happy for her.

* * *

The next night they go out for drinks at Josie’s. Matt’s not there, and Karen doesn’t ask for him to be. Maybe they’ve both been burned, Foggy thinks — that neither one of them wants to chance the rejection. Not when Matt’s probably with Elektra. They’re good enough to save, but not for Matt to put in any real effort for after that. Because they don’t get it, or the fact that they won’t just mindlessly accept Matt sacrificing his day life for his vigilante work means they aren’t accepting ‘who he is’, or. Something like that.

At the end of the night, Foggy closes out the tab with Josie. It feels like a goodbye.


	5. Chapter 5

Owning a business with a guy who refuses to show up is just stupid, but Foggy’s never had it in him to drop Matt altogether. Eventually, his anger cools. Eventually, the hurt dulls. They still live within ten blocks of each other, it would be stupid to let avoiding Matt take up too much of his time. And Foggy still cares, of course he does — no matter how upset he got, he never stopped caring about Matt, not really. So. They still meet up sometimes, at Josie’s. Become the stilted acquaintances Matt’s apparently wanted them to be all along. Matt tells Foggy he’s stopped going out in the mask. Which is good, it’s. He’s safer that way. Not that Foggy needs more than a check-the-time-length glance at his own arm to know if Matt’s alive or not, but not having to worry about it so much is kind of a load off his mind.

It takes six weeks for Foggy to find out that Elektra’s dead, and even then he doesn’t know what to say about it. To him, she’s really just the crowning jewel of all Matt’s bad life decisions. He’s never had the chance or the desire to know her as anything else. But Matt chose her over Karen, over Foggy, over their firm. Might have even chosen her over Daredevil. Foggy doesn’t have any illusions Matt quit going out in the mask out of any concern for himself or for Foggy’s nerves.

So, she’s important to Matt. Foggy doesn’t want to speak ill of her, not knowing it would only hurt Matt to hear. He sticks to lighter topics when they talk.

The rest of his time is spent working. Hogarth runs a tight ship already, and Foggy has his plate full juggling caseloads of civil disputes with constantly bailing Jessica Jones out of jail even before he agrees to represent Luke Cage at Claire’s request. But he does it, because he owes her for saving Matt’s life and because Luke’s clearly getting railroaded by the system.

It takes a hell of a lot of work and more time than Foggy would have liked to get the poor guy released, but... Foggy does that. He does it without Matt. Standing on his own two feet. And that feels good.

Which is why Foggy’s actually not that surprised when the earthquake hits Manhattan, because life never could let him have a good thing without pitching a disaster at him immediately after.

* * *

The rubble is still being cleared when Jess lands herself in a holding cell again. Foggy’s ready and willing to go get her out, but Hogarth basically tells him to let her swing. She’s never done that before. Not once, no matter how much trouble Jess has caused.

If even Hogarth doesn’t want to touch it, whatever Jess is digging into has gotta be fucking radioactive.

Lucky for her, Foggy knows an expert in radioactive. So for the first time in six months, Foggy calls Matt to ask for a favor.

“Foggy? Is. Is everything ok?”

The confusion is gutting, even when it’s understandable. There was a time not long ago when Matt would never have been confused that Foggy was calling him. A time when they spent most of their days together, a time when they just— got each other and Foggy really felt like Matt’s soulmate even if his romantic feelings were one-sided. But that’s not what they are now.

“Foggy?”

Foggy clears his throat.

“Right. Uh. Hey, Matt,” he says, and cringes. “Everything’s fine with me, just. One of our investigators got picked up by the cops. But uh. Hogarth doesn’t really want us involved. I thought maybe you could help her out instead? If you can?”

Foggy’s working on trying to count backwards from ten instead of mentally berating himself when Matt replies.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure? I’ll. Just, just get me the information and I’ll um. Take a look.”

So Foggy passes on Jess’s info, the precinct that’s holding her, what little he knows about the situation. And when that horrible, stilted conversation is over, he wipes his hands of the whole situation. Matt will deal with Jess; Foggy doesn’t have to feel guilty, and he doesn’t have to know any more about what Jess has gotten herself into. He’s a normal lawyer and he’s going to do normal lawyer things that do not involve vigilantes.

This well-thought-out plan works for approximately a day and a half before an idiot in devil horns ambushes Foggy on his way home.

“No,” Foggy insists before Matt can get a word in edgewise. “No. You told me you took off the mask. You—”

“I _did_ ,” snaps Matt. “And now I’m putting it back on. Because everyone is _in danger_. Including you. You have to come with me, now.”

Ahh, yes. Have to. Foggy’s two least favorite words coming from a man with the literal worst plans ever, like ‘ditch my job to fight ninjas with my ex’ and ‘make some dumb fuck fall in love with me and think we’re best friends, and then drop him like a browning avocado’.

“Because once again, only the great Matt Murdock can save us all by unilaterally making all the decisions,” Foggy says, drawing from a well of bitterness he didn’t even know he still had. “You can go fuck yourself.”

“Foggy—”

“I don’t want you anywhere near me in that mask, Matt.”

“Foggy, _please_.”

Matt’s voice breaks, and the wall Foggy’s very carefully built around his heart over the last several months shatters like glass. He’s an idiot, he knows this even as it’s happening, and if he knew what was best for him he’d— But Foggy doesn’t know what’s best for him. He just knows that Matt’s scared and desperate. And as bitter as Foggy is, as much of an asshole as he’s been already tonight... He doesn’t want to be the cause of that. The part of him that is angry at Matt is closer to the surface, but the part that loves Matt — the part that knows that Matt’s a good man who wants to help people, who wants justice and truth, who laughs at stupid puns and smiles like sunshine — is infinitely larger.

“Fine.” Foggy scrubs his hands over his face. “Fine. Ok. What the hell is this all about?”

“You’re in danger,” Matt repeats, which is— just so illuminating, wow, thanks Captain Obvious. “Everyone I. Everyone I care about is. But there’s a detective that promised— Anyway, you’ll be safe with her. But we need to go now.”

Foggy agrees like a sucker, without even asking any follow up questions about the danger — mostly because it seems like Matt really, really doesn’t want to answer them. And then it’s indicated to him that ‘go now’ is code for ‘swing over the rooftops like lunatics and/or Spider-Man’.

“No, Matt.”

“It’s the fastest way.”

“No.”

“I won’t let you fall, I promise.”

“N. O. Am I speaking Greek here? No way, no how, no—”

* * *

They take the rooftops.

* * *

Once they drop down in front of the precinct belonging to Matt’s detective buddy, Matt doesn’t even say goodbye. Just vanishes into the night again. Typical.

“Try not to get stabbed this time,” Foggy says to empty air.

When he enters the building, he’s directed to a break room with several other people milling around, but before he can get a close look, Karen has grabbed his arm and hurried him over to a private corner to talk.

“He came and got you too,” she says, and Foggy’s at least relieved she’s not surprised about it.

“Yeah, he did.”

He tries not to wonder if this is a ‘most important first’ or ‘save the best for last’ kind of situation, and fails. Which sucks, because absolutely none of Foggy’s insecurities or soulmate jealousy issues regarding Matt are Karen’s fault. It shouldn’t have to be a competition. And hasn’t Foggy gotten the memo by now anyway, about what his chances are with Matt?

“Did he explain what this is all about?” asks Karen, thankfully cutting through the beginning of that whole emotional spiral.

“Matt never tells me anything,” Foggy points out.

Karen looks exasperated but unsurprised — if she had a drink, she’d probably tilt it at him in commiseration.

“Fair enough,” she says. “But I know someone who will.”

And that’s how Foggy gets introduced to radio star Trish Walker, recently almost-assassinated by ninjas and best friend to Jessica Jones. He doesn’t dare look at his soulmark, not where someone might see, but he finds himself rubbing it absently through his sleeve anyway. In the back of his head he tries to calculate how many bathroom breaks he can take to check it before people start getting suspicious.

* * *

Foggy and Karen and the other civilians — some he knows, like Claire, and others he doesn’t — are at the 29th Precinct for protection, but no one’s forcing them to stay. And the moment Matt’s hauled in from the scene of a double-homicide with Jess and Luke and no Danny — all three of them unconscious, and Matt’s clothes (a work suit, thank god, and not the horns) so blood-heavy that they’re immediately swapped for an NYPD shirt and sweats — Foggy knows he has to go. Whatever fucked-up ninja nonsense the three of them are mixed up in, it’s dangerous. But danger never stopped Matt, and Foggy’s pretty sure Jess is going to be masterminding some kind of escape as soon as she wakes up. That means Matt can’t be running around without a mask. Unlike Luke and Jess, he has a secret identity to protect.

So Foggy gets an escort to Matt’s place, ostensibly to get the guy some clean clothes. Unlocks the door with the spare key he’d never given back, and stuffs that beloved-hated armor into a duffel bag.

For once, it’s Foggy who gives Matt the mask. Foggy who puts it in his hands and all but tells him to go. Because maybe Foggy has no idea what’s really going on but he knows it’s terrible and he knows Matt and the others have the best chance to stop it.

He really believes that. Through sirens and frantic phone calls, through shaky news footage of a collapsing building, Foggy believes it.

Right up until Jess and Luke and Danny walk through the door and Matt isn’t with them.

* * *

Foggy doesn’t look at the mark in the police station. He doesn’t look at it when he walks Karen home. Doesn’t look at it as he trudges back to his empty, nicely-furnished apartment. He spends three days wearing long sleeves and keeping his eyes trained upwards while he showers.

He’s too afraid to see that it’s faded. That would break him completely. As long as he doesn’t look, Matt could still be alive. As long as he doesn’t look, there’s still hope.

But at the end of the week, he can’t take it anymore. He gets absolutely smashed on middle-shelf tequila and rolls up his sleeve.

The mark is as vibrant as it was the day it first appeared, and Foggy bawls like a baby.

Matt’s alive.


	6. Chapter 6

Foggy doesn’t spiral even as the months stretch on with no sign of Matt. Can’t, when the proof that Matt’s still out there somewhere is only a glance at his own arm away. And as mortifying as it is, he ends up telling Karen and all the Super Friends about it too because he knows that’s the right thing to do. Letting them all believe Matt’s dead just to save himself a little embarrassment is unthinkable. Even if the look Karen gives him after tracing a finger over his soulmark is full of pity and guilt.

He’s not sure she believes him when he tells her it’s fine, but she does let him go eighty/twenty on the rent for Matt’s warehouse-chic shithole of an apartment. He’ll be back, and he’ll want his home still there for him when he does because Matt hates getting used to sleeping in a new place.

Foggy tells himself that, over and over again.

He’ll be back. He will.

* * *

When Matt actually returns — for real, instead of popping in to steal Foggy’s wallet and then ghost him like a dick — soulmarks are just about the last thing on anybody’s mind. Staying alive kind of takes priority, and Foggy’s focus, personally, is taken up in equal parts by anger and terror.

Because. The thing is. Daredevil is genuinely pants-shittingly terrifying. But he’s also still just Matt in a Kevlar suit. Matt, who Foggy loves more than almost anything in the world. And that’s scary in its own way, Matt putting himself in that kind of danger.

But Foggy has never felt more terrified than the moment he stares down Daredevil and a stranger, a killer, stares back. He’s never liked Matt being Daredevil, but seeing Benjamin Poindexter in that suit is like watching someone walking around in Matt’s skin. Grotesque. Nauseating.

That in and of itself is almost worse than seeing one of Daredevil’s clubs flying at his face and knowing he’s going to die.

Of course, then the world stops. A hand shoots out and catches the club midair. Matt protects him. Saves him. And even amidst his fear, Foggy thinks, fondly, I should have known. Even now, when he’s back to having nothing more than thin black cloth to protect himself, Matt’s the kind of person who throws himself into danger like a shield to protect people. That’s the bravery Foggy’s always admired him for, ever since he was still just a faded newspaper headline about a heroic little boy.

And for maybe the first time ever, Foggy thinks he really, truly understands what it means that Matt is his soulmate. There’s love and admiration and attraction and— all that stuff. But most of all? Most of all it’s that knowing someone like Matt Murdock exists out in the world, even if not by Foggy’s side, makes life worth living.

* * *

Things get worse, and they get worse still, and more people die. Father Lantom, Agent Nadeem. Each loss is like a stake to the chest, like breathing glass. It begins to feel like, no matter how hard they try, there is no way to succeed.

But eventually, the good guys win. Eventually, Matt pulls victory from the jaws of defeat with his own bloodied hands.

And after? It takes approximately two days for the adrenaline to wear off – for all of them. It’s going to be a millennia before Fisk sees the inside of a courtroom again, but. Well. At least Foggy doesn’t have to worry about being assassinated by corrupt FBI agents. Which isn’t something he ever should have had to worry about in the _first place_. Still, with his luck Foggy figures he should count himself lucky it wasn’t another alien invasion or something.

The relief finally hits him sitting with Karen and Matt in the back of the Nelson shop, the whole brood around them as they share a drink. Giddiness as sudden and stunning as a sucker punch has Foggy doodling all three of their names on a brand-new napkin. The others seem just as elated. Together, the three of them poke fun at one another, celebrate, and sing horribly – and when it’s time to go for the night, he and Matt walk Karen home.

Then, plenty drunk themselves, they amble back to Matt’s place. With a little grin that Foggy hasn’t seen in way too long, Matt asks him to come in. Just to hold his own against melting like a cream puff, Foggy jokes that he should be the one doing the inviting, considering he’s been paying the rent and all. They both enter, pull a couple beers from Matt’s pathetically empty fridge, and keep on drinking.

* * *

“I thought about not coming back,” Matt confesses several minutes in.

“I thought maybe you’d choose not to,” Foggy tells him right back, picking at the label of the beer in his hands. “Guess I know you too well. Ha. But, at least I knew you were alive, so I... I was fine.”

“You knew I was alive,” Matt repeats slowly, “so you were fine?” 

“I wouldn’t have been, without... Just, knowing you were still alive somewhere was pretty much the only thing that kept me from shutting down,” Foggy admits, knowing he can only say it so freely because he’s drunk, and not caring at all.

“But how did you know?” asks Matt. “How did you know I was alive?”

Foggy shakes his head.

“Jeez, Matty, how do you think I knew?” He rolls up his sleeve clumsily. “Although I guess I never let you feel it before. Here.”

Inhibitions lowered, he grabs Matt’s hand gently and tugs it over to the underside of his right arm — lets go to allow Matt to trace the shape himself.

“You. You’re. This is,” stammers Matt, and his fingers begin to tremble.

“It’s my soulmark,” Foggy says slowly, baffled. “You already knew I had it.”

Matt rips off his glasses and gives Foggy the most scathing ‘what the _fuck_ are you talking about?’ expression he’s ever seen. The world tilts slightly on its axis.

“You,” Foggy continues tentatively, “you knew. You’ve known. I mean, the supersenses or whatever, you know everything, right?”

“I’ve got enhanced senses, Foggy, I’m not _psychic_! You— how, how long have you had this?”

Which is... A question Foggy really, really does not want to answer in light of this revelation. He clears his throat a little, laughs uncomfortably.

“ _Foggy_.”

Matt’s tone is sharp, and low, and brooks no argument.

“Since... Since three months after we started using the fake ones.”

Matt jerks to his feet suddenly, releasing Foggy’s arm. Then he strides away into his bedroom — has to catch himself on the door jamb when he sways, but otherwise doesn’t slow his pace. Foggy just barely catches a glimpse of him yanking a pillow off the bed before he’s screaming into it. The shout could be wordless, maybe, but to Foggy it sounds suspiciously like ‘are you _fucking_ kidding me!’

“Matt...?”

Matt whirls around, miraculously not losing his balance, and tosses the pillow to the floor. He’s... Yeah, he looks pissed off. Extremely pissed off.

“You— you idiot!”

“Now— Matt, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on here,” Foggy says, much more tentatively than he intends, but, like, sue him because Matt looks full on Daredevil-angry. “There’s plenty of things you didn’t tell me, and after I learned about your senses I thought you knew.”

“You thought I, you thought I knew, and you just— didn’t say anything about it?” demands Matt.

He stalks back over towards Foggy, but stumbles over the leg of one of the armchairs when his straight line of fury veers off-course a little.

“Of course I didn’t!” Foggy defends himself, catching Matt’s elbow so he doesn’t fall flat on his dumb busted-up face. “It didn’t matter! It still doesn’t matter!”

“Doesn’t. Matter?” seethes Matt, jerking out of Foggy’s grip. “How could it possibly not matter, Foggy?”

“It doesn’t matter because you don’t have one!”

Matt throws up his hands in frustration.

“How would I even know if I did?” he demands.

Which is. Of course he doesn’t have one. He doesn’t. Because.

“I don’t know, Matt, you’d probably have to be in love with me first!”

“Well I am!” shouts Matt.

Foggy, whose mouth is already open to argue right back at him, freezes. Silence stretches between them for a minute, two.

“... What?”

Matt hunches in on himself, picking at the fabric of his sleeve.

“I am,” he mutters, mutinous. “I am in love with you.”

“Matt, come on. I know we’re giving this, the firm, everything, another shot but. You’re being ridiculous.”

They both know Matt’s feelings for Foggy aren’t like that. Sure, he hadn’t actually known about the mark — which leaves a bizarre lightness in Foggy’s chest, like a weight he’s been carrying for ages has finally been lifted away. But. But. That doesn’t mean he magically has romantic feelings now where he didn’t before.

True to form, Matt gets his dander up about it immediately.

“You don’t get to tell me what I feel, Foggy.”

Matt’s teeth are practically bared and all Foggy can think is, _I wish you were telling me the truth_. Because he wants this to be true, more than anything. It doesn’t have to be true — Foggy can live with it if it’s not — but. He still wants it.

The problem is, the facts don’t add up.

“No. I can’t tell you what you feel. But I can tell you how you’ve acted. Matt, you’ve never shown any interest in me like that before. You’re always chasing after hot women who are trouble — and there’s nothing wrong with that, except when it gets your wallet stolen or us nearly assassinated. But I’m not, I’ve never been what you wanted.”

“Yes, you have! And you’ve got, you’ve got no room to talk here! You _knew_ I was your soulmate and you still pushed Karen and I together!” Matt accuses. “How was that supposed to read to me, because it really felt like _you_ were the one who didn’t want _me_!”

Which is, ok yeah Foggy did push Karen and Matt together, but also that’s not an entirely fair assertion. If there’d been any indication whatsoever that Matt wanted him, Foggy probably wouldn’t have done that.

“What was I supposed to do?” he defends himself. “You didn’t want me to get the wrong idea, Matt!”

“In college! Maybe I changed my mind! It’s been over a decade, you know, I’m. I’m allowed to do that. What the hell did you think that, that ‘sounds like we’re getting married’ was all about, Foggy?”

The stubborn set to Matt’s jaw is so familiar that Foggy’s heart squeezes in his chest and his momentum dies out right there. He scrubs a hand over his face and laughs sharply.

“You could’ve said something, dummy,” he sighs, unable to help the painfully fond note in his voice.

“Just having you with me was enough,” Matt admits very, very quietly, his chin dipped down towards his chest.

After so long thinking Matt— God, thinking he hadn’t given a shit about Foggy at all, those words are enough to make him tear up.

“You could’ve said something about that too,” he chokes out.

Matt’s face crumples.

“I never meant to make you feel like I didn’t care. I just. I could never tell you how I felt, not when I was still lying to you about my senses, about Daredevil. And then you got shot, and I didn’t, I couldn’t stop it. So I went to the source, I saw Fisk, and he threatened you, and I. Being near me painted a target on your back. I didn’t deserve to...”

Deserve. Didn’t deserve. Like it’s even about that, like all that matters in the equation is whether Matt had done enough to keep Foggy safe.

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._

“Maybe you should stop deciding what you do and don’t deserve, Matt,” he cuts in. “You’re not very good at it. Couldn’t you tell all I wanted was to see you?”

Matt slumps back down onto the couch; drags a hand through his hair and then down his face.

“I’m. Foggy, I’m sorry. But you, you have to believe me. The way I feel about you is...”

Instead of saying it right out again, Matt makes a shrugging motion that seems to say, ‘well, you know’. It’s a level of emotional constipation Foggy’s used to from Matt — almost comforting in its familiarity.

“Matt...”

“You believe me, don’t you? I’m not, I wouldn’t lie about this. Not this. Not to you.”

Foggy finds that, yeah, he’s coming around to believing it. But that doesn’t mean everything is magically fixed. They still have rebuilding to do. Apologies to make to each other. Trust to rebuild. All that stuff.

Still... The way Matt’s lower lip juts out a little is both pleading and unfairly tempting.

“We need to do, just, so much talking about all of this,” Foggy warns. “But I’ve been waiting ten years to kiss your stupid face, so I’m deciding to be responsible later.”

Matt beams at him and Foggy resigns himself to being a sucker for Matt Murdock for the rest of his life.

Their first kiss starts soft. Foggy’s heart is pounding so loud even he can hear it, so to Matt it must be cacophonous. There’s still a part of him, small but insistent, that feels like this moment is a bubble about to burst.

That feeling lasts all of one and a half seconds, at which point Matt pins Foggy to the arm of the couch in his enthusiasm. There’s not really any wiggle room for misunderstandings after that.

By the time the thought ‘hey, we’re kinda drunk’ oozes into Foggy’s brain, his shirt is untucked and Matt is sucking a bite mark into his neck like they’re a couple of teenagers instead of grown-ass lawyers over thirty. It takes two fumbling tries to close his hand around Matt’s left wrist, which is fidgeting with the button of Foggy’s slacks.

“Matt. Matty. C’mon, just. Drunk sex is no bueno. Consent? Yes?”

“I am the most sober I have ever been,” Matt says, not even trying to sound truthful as he lets his captured hand be guided up to Foggy’s shoulder.

All Foggy can do is laugh. He’s not sure if it’s the alcohol finally settling in, or the way Matt’s been kissing him, but everything is dizzy and too intense.

“Lush. Well I for one have been... Lots more sober. Soberer. Whatever. Than this.”

Matt looks like he’s about to argue the point — just for the sake of it, because that’s who he is — but is interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. You wouldn’t know it from the billboard but it is, Foggy realizes, pretty damn late.

“Ok, bedtime,” he decides after a yawn of his own. “But we should, first we gotta... Water.”

“Mmhmm,” agrees Matt.

But he makes no move to get up. _Lazy_ , Foggy thinks with a dopey smile on his face. Then he groans and hauls himself to his feet, nudging Matt off him so he falls back into the opposite end of the couch. Shuffling into the kitchen, Foggy fills them each a glass of water from the tap. He’s not exactly walking straight, but he’s probably better off than Matt, whose super-equilibrium is shot all to hell.

Some of the water sloshes over the edge of the glasses when Foggy plops back down onto the couch, but he doesn’t mind. It’s nice and cool against his overheated hands.

“Drink up, Matty.”

Matt accepts one of the glasses, and Foggy keeps the other. They both drink. Hopefully it’ll keep away the most damning of the hangover effects in the morning.

“Foggy?” Matt says with his mouth still brushing the lip of the glass. “I really do love you. So much I don’t, I don’t even know what to do with it sometimes.”

The words bring a lump to Foggy’s throat. He tries to swallow it down with the last of his water and mostly fails.

“I. I love you too, buddy. Always have.”

The air is thick with— tension, emotion, something. It’s not necessarily bad, but Foggy’s not sure what to do with it, so he’s actually grateful when the moment is interrupted by Matt needing to use the bathroom.

* * *

When they’re both roughly settled — bladders emptied, faces slashed with water, teeth brushed — Matt heads back to his bedroom. Foggy’ll take the couch, then, he figures. But he’s still got one thought nagging at him that he has to get out first.

“Hey, do you really not know if you have a soulmark?” he wonders, stifling a yawn and leaning against the door jamb.

“Well. No one’s ever said anything, and after my breakup with Elektra in college, I didn’t bother to try and feel for one. If you didn’t have one, I didn’t want one,” Matt claims, and then his smile goes wicked. “But I’ll let you check me all over tomorrow in the shower, if it means that much to you.”

Foggy can feel his ears going bright red, and wonders if Matt’s crazy senses are picking up on the extra heat in his face or not.

“Oh my god,” he manages to choke out at last, gently shoving Matt towards the bed. “Get your drunk ass to sleep, Mr. Murdock. You are shameless. Utterly shameless.”

As if to prove this statement, Matt yanks his loose tie over his head and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He’s still grinning like the cat that got the cream.

“Only if you join me.”

“You—”

“You should—” Matt interrupts, stopping Foggy’s clumsy finger-wagging cold. “You should call me a harlot or something, that’ll really get me going.”

There is no good response to that and he knows it, the bastard.

“Jesus Christ, Matt.”

With a smooth roll of his shoulders, Matt’s unbuttoned shirt slips off. After tossing it into a hamper in the corner, he immediately begins unzipping his slacks.

“Would you stop blaspheming and get over here already?”

And. Foggy wants to, he really, really wants to. Just...

“Matt we are so drunk right now.”

Pausing with one leg still in his slacks, Matt throws Foggy a baffled expression.

“Yeah? I know? That’s... Why we’re going to bed?”

Bed. To sleep. Not to... Other stuff. Ok. Yeah. Ok. Cool. Right. Like Foggy was saying. Because they’re drunk, and like, can’t consent and stuff.

But Matt still wants to sleep in the same bed anyway. It makes Foggy feel bright and shimmery all over.

Or else that’s all the booze talking.

Shaking himself, Foggy strips down for bed too. Normally he wears sweatpants and a sleep shirt, but, when in Rome...

He pulls his phone from his slacks and plops it down on the nightstand before folding his clothes up and leaving them in a pile in the corner. When he looks up, Matt is waiting.

He’s gorgeous and practically naked and Foggy can’t see a mark on him that wasn’t put there by fighting organized crime. But... That’s ok. Matt said he loved him. Said it indignantly, with truth in his voice. Said it softly, with a glass at his lips. Maybe the soulmark is still there somewhere, hiding. Maybe it isn’t. For now, all Foggy can do is believe in Matt. And that’s enough.

When Matt climbs under the covers, Foggy follows. But once they’re both lying down, he’s not... Really sure what to do with himself. Back? Side? Face to face or front to back? He waffles, fidgets, turns his head to see what Matt’s doing — only to find Matt rolled into his side, his exasperated and indulgent smile just barely visible in the ambient light of that godforsaken billboard filtering through the doorway. Foggy shifts to face him fully.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits to Matt, finding it suddenly imperative to whisper. “But if we go to sleep like this, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna wake up wrapped around you like a boa constrictor. So, uh. Sorry.”

“It’s ok, Fogs,” Matt teases, wiggling closer to nudge their noses together. “Go ahead. I already know you’re a cuddler.”

Foggy’s heart leaps in his chest. His lips tingle. It’s ridiculous and sappy and he’s never been happier in his life.

“Well. If you’re sure.”

Grateful for the darkness of the bedroom, Foggy eases one arm under Matt’s right side and loops the other over his left. The skin of Matt’s back is hot under his hands. Comforting. Despite everything, Matt’s here and alive.

And as much of a tease as ever — he catches Foggy’s mouth in another kiss, bringing his hands up so he can cup Foggy’s face between them and deepen it. Not one to be outdone, Foggy decides that he might as well grab a handful of that ass he’s been trying literal years not to admire. Matt doesn’t have a monopoly on being grabby around here.

When Foggy slides a palm down Matt’s spine, at first he dismisses all the lines and ridges he’s feeling as Matt’s many scars. But just as he’s tucking his hand into the back of Matt’s waistband, he realizes what shape the ones directly beneath his fingers are.

“Mm. Mmf.” It takes a little struggle, and some light smacking of extremely built shoulders, but Foggy does eventually manage to extract his mouth from Matt’s. “Wait. Wait, I think I. Turn over, I have to see something.”

Though he pouts about it, Matt does roll onto his stomach, allowing Foggy to sit up and tug the elastic of Matt’s boxers down. He has to grab his phone off the nightstand to get some light that far down the bed, but when he does? There it is, right on Matt’s lower back, barely an inch from that perfect ass.

The scales of justice.

“Oh my god,” Foggy breathes. “You really are a butt-soulmark person.”

He thinks he should be laughing, but there’s too much wonder at actually seeing that mark — first doodled on their arms a decade ago — on Matt’s skin to muster a more teasing tone.

“A, a soulmark?” Matt asks, pleased and eager. “Your soulmark?”

“Our soulmark,” corrects Foggy absently, because since the beginning the scales have always been for both of them.

He traces the lines of the mark with his finger, feels the slightly raised skin again.

“That’s not on my butt,” Matt protests, pillowing his face in his arms but still not able to hide his surprised, delighted grin.

All Foggy can do is laugh.

“Dude, come on. This is no time for your pedantry. Your soulmark is a tramp stamp, that’s basically the same thing.”

“You like it,” Matt points out.

“I love it,” corrects Foggy, tossing his phone back on the nightstand, swatting Matt on the ass lightly, and then nudging him to roll back over. “Come here, I need to kiss your stupid face again one more time before we pass out.”

“It’s not stupid,” Matt protests.

Then, perfect, competitive dweeb that he is, Matt twists and knocks Foggy onto his back to kiss him first.

They don’t get to sleep for another half an hour, and Foggy wakes in the morning crushed under 175 pounds of pure muscle, with a dull headache and Matt’s hair in his mouth. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. He finds himself thinking about the first time he drew them matching marks, about the way things have changed and the way they’ve stayed the same. Maybe life in the splash zone now includes ninjas and mobsters instead of sketchy girlfriends, but it’s still absolutely worth it.

After all, Foggy’s got the best kind of soulmate in the world — one that chose him back.


End file.
